


Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

by ValkyriaRising



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, And the soul stone returns Nat, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Cap doesn't grow old, Endgame Fix-It, F/M, Fix-It, I have a lot of other grievances but this is a start, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, OH and Loki and Heimdall are alive, Thor isn't fat or an alcoholic, Tony doesn't die, You have no goddamn idea how fucking angry I am, because I refuse to believe that the second most tenacious person in the MCU would just give up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 01:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18622165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkyriaRising/pseuds/ValkyriaRising
Summary: Tony wakes up. Thor comes to terms with his past mistakes. Steve recognizes he has to let go.





	1. Proof that Tony Stark Has a Living, Beating Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of furious about Endgame, so I wrote this to address everything that I refuse to accept, starting with Tony. -Valk
> 
> Edit 6/20: If you like what you read, I'm accepting written commissions now <3 More info can be found on my tumblr page **[here](https://blackwxtchmccree.tumblr.com/post/185739594624/update-and-commissions)**.

Tony opened his eyes to find everyone looking at him.

To be fair, it _wasn’t_ unusual, but the way Pepper, Peter, and Rhodey were looking at him now made him wonder if he had done something wrong—made him wonder if something had gone wrong again. He had snapped his fingers and felt something akin to relief, but their concerned looks were slowly souring the respite he thought he had finally achieved.

His entire right arm burned—pain was radiating up his shoulder into his neck and he tried moving the limb, but found it difficult, like his neurons were receiving the message, yet they were incapable of carrying out the action. When he lifted his head, blinking blearily as his vision focused on the people around him, he watched as relief seemed to flood through his friends.

Maybe things really were okay.

Maybe he could _finally rest._

Tony found that when they lifted him up, Rhodey under one arm and Peter under the other, the torn up battlefield before him was empty save for burning spaceships and the other heroes that had come to their rescue. There were no sign of chaos, no sign of remaining enemy forces, and no sign of Thanos.

Tony Stark had defeated his arch-enemy—with a simple snap of his fingers.

After seeing what the stones had done to Bruce when they had undone the Snap, Tony wondered why he had escaped with his life. The six stones they had so painstakingly collected still sat on his armored hand and he glanced at them, his breathing labored as Rhodey and Peter slowly led him off of the battlefield. He could hear the stones whispering—feel the power they held still coursing through his veins, feel them pull back towards him when Steve and Carol went to remove them. Right—they had to return them to their timelines.

He had been content with accepting his fate, thinking that death awaited him on the other side of the stones’ power, but maybe a part of him had still wished to escape with his life—wished to experience his daughter growing up and hoping to grow old with Pepper. Maybe that was enough to satiate the extraterrestrial power they held. They had restored the peace and granted him that one final hope and he was grateful.

Once the last of the stones left his hand, exhaustion and weakness overcame his entire being and he struggled to put one foot in front of the other. Their battle was finally won and he realized he could finally sleep without nightmares of Thanos’s reckoning and his friend’s deaths clouding his mind. He longed for it, collapsing to his knees, tears staining his face as a small smile graced his lips. He heard Pepper call out to him, fear leaching into her voice, but he turned towards her as black spots clouded his vision, grabbing her hand as he faded from the world again, but promising to return. He just wanted to sleep—unusual for him, but he deserved it after so long spent trying and failing to reverse the events of 5 years ago.

They had fixed what they thought couldn’t be undone and Thanos was finally scattered to the universe.

***

Tony awoke this time to darkness in his bedroom, his mind quiet and not racing like it normally was when he woke up from some semblance of sleep. He heard the rhythmic beep of the EKG they had him hooked up to—likely fearing the stones power had damaged him in ways that extended beyond his arm. He tried moved it again once he got his bearings, finding it to be tightly wrapped and in a sling pressed to his chest. He could barely move his fingers and every time he did pain seared through his nerves, but he could still move them and that was a good sign. He had helped Rhodey walk again, so he could work on helping himself later if needed. They had attempted and succeeded in using time travel to change the universe’s fate, so his limits had been considerably raised as to what they could achieve.

Checking the time, he found it to be late in the evening and the sound of clinking plates and glasses drew his attention when he sat up, squinting and quietly asking F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn on the lights. She asked if he wanted her to inform his wife that he was awake, but he said he’d go down there himself. He wanted to see the full results of their endeavors, see his daughter again and greet the rest of his _family_.

Tony rose shakily to his feet, pulling the electrode patches off of his skin and turning the EKG off, stumbling his way to the door, leaning against the frame to catch his breath and to calm his spinning head. Once the world was right-side up again, he slowly padded down the hall, using the wall as support until he reached the elevator, taking it down to the first floor. The genius was sure he looked like hell, but they had just saved the world—he was sure his friends could give him a break, and if they didn’t he was sure they had missed his quick witted retorts in the time he had been unconscious.

Once the elevator door opened, everyone looked up and Tony was greeted with smiles and cheers, finding that most of the heroes who had aided them remained, alongside all of those that had faced off with Thanos to begin with, drinks and food in their hands and music playing softly in the background. Steve moved quickly across the kitchen to support Tony, who asked him quietly if he had returned the stones. Steve nodded, giving him a reassuring smile as the super soldier led him to the couch, telling him everything was back as it should be.

Once he sat down, Morgan curled up against his side, munching on the cheeseburger slider that was in her small hands. Tony pulled her closer, his heart pounding in his chest, forcing down grateful tears that accosted the edges of his eyes as Steve, Thor, Bruce, Natasha, and Clint surrounded him, patting him on the shoulder or taking his free hand.

It had started with them, standing in a circle on a destroyed street in New York surrounded by chitauri and threatened by who they could find out was Thanos from the wormhole in the sky. It was strange to him now—they had seemed so alone at the time, the six of them faced with saving at the time just Earth, but now they were surrounded by people from across the universe that hadn’t given up hope. He himself finally wasn’t alone, with Morgan and Pepper always gracing his present and Steve, Nat, Clint, Thor, Bruce, even T’challa and co., Bucky, the Guardians, Strange, and the others within his reach.

It was a comforting thought—knowing that they weren’t the only ones dedicated to defending all of life in the universe.

That was enough to make Tony sit back, raising his hand to rest over the arc reactor facade on his chest. He could feel his heart beating just below and to the left of it. When he looked up, his eyes fell on the shelf just above the tv.

_Proof that Tony Stark has a heart._

His old arc reactor sat there in that glass box—a gift from Pepper all of those years ago. Had you asked him at that time to think beyond himself, he didn’t know if he was capable. Hours ago, it was all he could think about.

Now, sitting here alive surrounded by everyone he holds dear, he was glad he learned how.


	2. Ghost of a King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor's hope is rekindled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My main issues with Thor's characterization in Endgame just come from the fact that he's the second most goddamn stubborn person in the MCU (Steve and Tony are tied for first) and I refuse to believe he would give up. It ruins his character development from Ragnarok and while I understand he may feel defeated, I refuse to accept that he would just abandon his people and friends when they're trying to rebuild. They made his depression, alcoholism, and his weight out to be a joke and I wont stand for that. So I fixed it. 
> 
> Oh also, Loki and Heimdall deserved better, so I fixed that, too. -Valk

Blinding rage—a feeling that used to be familiar in his youth, but had faded with his hubris in the few years before the Snap.

It was coursing through his veins now, electricity crackling at the tips of his fingers and up the handle of Stormbreaker, electrifying the blade. Thor had told himself that crafting another weapon was the right thing to do—that it would mean the end of Thanos before he could destroy half of the life in the universe, but they had failed.

“You should have aimed for the head.”

Those words haunted him, echoed in his dreams and sat at the back of his throat like bile that threatened to rise up in the permeating nausea that had overtaken his being in the days after. The God of Thunder had lost his mother, his father, his brother, his people, his home, and now his friends. He wondered if it ever ended—if the suffering and the pain stopped and he silently cursed his long lifespan.

Before he knew it, Thanos’s head rolled across the floor, but looking at it now, ignoring the gasps and incredulous looks of the other, he felt empty. He wasn’t fit to be king—he had no kingdom and barely any people left to rule. The stones were lost.

 _He_ was lost.

Before now, his path had seemed set. Before now, he had still maintained some hope that maybe, just _maybe_ , all of this could be reversed, but without the very items that had caused their suffering, they couldn’t undo the tragedy that they weren’t able to prevent.

If someone had asked him what he had done in the five years that followed, Thor wasn’t sure he could tell them. He had wearily brought the rest of his people to the coast of Norway, sitting on the cliffside where his father had died and looked out over the ocean, wishing Loki was still in his presence. He regretted chastising his brother at the time, wondering if Loki had forgiven him before he had died, the God of Mischief looking his brother in the eyes as the color drained from his face.

“Brother, the sun will shine on us again.”

Thor wondered if that would ever be true. Even with Valkyrie at his side, Asgard and his family were lost. He was alone, even when surrounded by his fellow Avengers. He had failed to protect them, to protect his people, to protect Earth like he had once promised. He spent those years drifting, working with his people in their small port village hoping that some ray of hope would present itself. He had fallen into drinking late at night, finding himself wandering the Norwegian countryside, staring out over the sea. His father had said he could hear his mother calling to him before he went and some nights, Thor wished he could hear someone calling to _him_ , signaling his oncoming end. He didn’t deserve when Valkyrie would come looking for him just before the sun rose, dragging him back to his new home, quietly imploring Korg and Meek to keep an eye on him as he slept, his dreams filled with passing memories of his mother reading to him and Loki when they were young boys, or his father teaching him to wield Mjolnir.

He had been helping Valkyrie unload crates of supplies when Banner and Rocket had arrived five years later. He had needed to keep busy during those days, needed to keep his mind from drifting to what could have been—far more silent and far less boisterous than in his younger days, a ghost of the man his father had wanted to name king. He set the crate he had thrown over his shoulder down when they arrived in a small truck, approaching him and Valkyrie with hope in their eyes.

Hope—Thor wished he remembered what that felt like, but he found that once Banner explained the potential solution they had found to the Snap, the hope he had long thought had burned out in his heart was rekindled. He’d spent many nights searching in his head for potential solutions—Asgard had been full of intellectuals and knowledge found nowhere else in the universe, but he knew his friends were far smarter than he, and he promised himself as he drifted off to sleep that if they called on him, he would answer. He knew he would also need to be ready to answer, and put on a brave face for his people, too, dragging himself out of bed to lead the remaining Asgardians until that very day came.

After their visit, everything happened in a rush and he returned to the Avengers compound, heart beating in his chest when he was faced with his old teammates. He was sure he looked a bit different than the last time they had seen him on the battlefield in Wakanda—still muscular and toned, but his hair and beard had grown out again. Within the next few days, as they worked out their plan to find the stones in the past again, he found the motivation to shave and cut his hair again, rolling his eyes, but unable to suppress a smile when Nat said he looked less like a hobo and more like the Thor she remembered.

The idea of stepping into the past made his heart race, but it finally calmed when his mother’s fingers cupped his face for the last time.

“The years have not been kind to you.”

She was right—of course she was, but those words further steeled his resolve rather than breaking it. The past might not have been kind—he might have lost almost everything, but he’d be damned if the future was the same. When they returned to their present and all six stones had settled into Stark’s gauntlet, Bruce snapped his fingers, and as they watched the world return to how it once was, the God of Thunder was determined to not fail—not this time, not again.

All of this led to him going toe-to-toe with Thanos, smiling when he turned to find Mjolnir in Steve’s hand. He had knew it—confirming that he had indeed seen the hammer budge all those years ago. When he had summoned the hammer in the past while talking to his mother, he had been relieved to find he could still pick it up. Mjolnir still considered him worthy, too, and while Stormbreaker felt more natural in his hands now, he was reminded that whatever happens, he was and always would be Thor, Prince of Asgard, son of Odin, and the God of Thunder.

Thanos had knocked him to the ground, burying him in the rubble of the former Avengers facility, his heart racing as he hoped that Tony and Steve could hold off the son of a bitch until he could get on his feet again. He was exhausted and his muscles screamed at him when he attempted to push rubble off of his body, black spots crowding the edges of his vision. He couldn’t rest—not yet.

As he looked up, something faded into his sight—a hand, he realized. A very _familiar_ hand, one Thor thought he would never see again. Looking up, Thor’s heart skipped a beat, finding his brother—the brother whose death had played on repeat in his head for five years, standing over him smirking. Loki gestured for him to take it, pulling Thor out of the rubble and back onto his feet, the God of Mischief handing Stormbreaker to the God of Thunder—to his _brother_ once he was coherent.

“I told you so.”

Four words that Thor had heard plenty of times in his life, but had never been more pleased to hear before than he was now. Thor smiled at Loki, resisting the urge to draw him into a hug because they were still in the middle of a battle, but giving Loki a grateful nod that the fellow god returned. Maybe the stones had taken pity on all of Thanos’s victims. That meant Heimdall was likely back, too, and Thor spotted him standing at the edge of the battlefield, the warrior giving the God of Thunder a nod and a small smile as well, raising his sword. It felt good to have them at his back again—he and his brother fell into sync, holding Thanos off alongside Tony and Steve until reinforcements arrived.

Thor got around to giving Loki a proper hug once the dust had settled and they had carried Tony away, back to his lakeside home where everyone followed. Thor couldn't stop the tears that pricked the edges of his eyes when he wrapped his arms around Loki again, hugging him tight and making sure he wasn’t an illusion. He wasn’t, of course—Thor was beyond grateful and when they broke apart Thor pressed their foreheads together, realizing Loki was crying, too. He greeted Heimdall with the same fervor, grateful to have at least some familiar people back in his presence. Maybe the universe was finally cutting him a break.

Once all was said and done, once they had celebrated and said their farewells, promising to return when needed, Thor showed his brother and his friend back to Asgard’s new location. It wasn’t as fanciful as their previous home, lacking the gold and luster that they had grown used to over the years, but Thor preferred it. He spotted Valkyrie on the cliff overlooking the town and headed up the hill to greet her.

When he turned over the throne, the talk with his mother in the past having changed his perspective, he was overcome with relief. Valkyrie looked shocked, but he could see the determination in her eyes, knowing she would make a good queen.

Asgard, Earth, and the universe were all in good hands.


	3. Walk Me Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve once told Tony that he went into the ice one man and came out a different man. He discovers this may be more true than he's willing to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I didn't expect to have a problem with Steve's ending, but unfortunately, I do. It made the end of the movie 10x worse than it needed to be—first we lost Tony, then Steve, which I wasn't expecting at all. I love Peggy and while I wanted them to be together, Steve isn't the same person he was in the 40's when he fell in love with her. I also refuse to accept that even if he and Bucky discussed the Endgame outcome, that Steve would get his best friend back after all of those years, and then leave again. Thus, why Stucky managed to sneak it's way in here. We are especially not here for doing Bucky Barnes dirty—not on my watch. -Valk

Steve had promised to put the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir back in their proper places before returning. 

Five seconds—that’s how long Banner had promised Sam and Bucky that it would take. When Steve didn’t return right away, Bucky’s heart was racing in his chest and he looked at Sam, wide-eyed and Sam could see the subtle terror in the super soldier’s eyes. 

Steve hadn’t meant to scare them, but he had decided to take a small trip while he was in the past—he was already there and had plenty of Pym particles left, so it couldn’t hurt. 

He had seen Peggy in the past already—stood on the other side of the glass and watched her lips move, but unable to hear what she was saying. She had been just as beautiful as the day he had went into the ice—red lipstick on her lips and not a hair out of place. He had still found her just as captivating in the few days he had visited her before she died. He had settled the internal conflict within himself the day of her funeral, her casket heavy on his shoulder as he helped lay her to rest. There had always been a branch in time tying them together, and ultimately, that was enough. 

Steve wasn’t sure that, even if he stayed in this timeline, grew old with her and had the life that he longed for after watching Tony raise Morgan that it was the right thing for him. He had told Tony once that he wasn’t the same person today as he was back when he went into the ice. He had grown up in one world—where the biggest threat had been the invading German army, but he had matured in an entirely different world, where aliens threatened the entire universe’s existence and he was responsible for protecting it. 

He had failed once, had a hand in repairing that failure, and finally had time to breathe, but watching Peggy now, sitting on her desk reading papers from a manila folder, he decided this point in time wasn’t the right one. In visiting her on her deathbed, Steve learned that the man she meets takes care of her and that she’s happy when everything is said and done and that’s enough for him. He pressed his hand against the glass, wishing he could kiss her one last time, but knowing that it wasn’t his place. He still had work to do—still had another place to return to where his friends were waiting for him. 

Steve hadn’t realized he was crying and his heart was aching until he realized he needed to return. He took one last look at Peggy Carter, smiling softly to himself, taking a shuddering breath before hitting the button. This wasn’t his timeline—there were people in his present that loved him just as much. He owed them enough to return to them. He  _ wanted _ to return to them—go back to listening to Sam and Bucky pick on each other and laugh at their stupid insults. He also wanted to do something he had been wanting to do for a long time—since he had made peace that Peggy was gone. 

Being swept through the Quantum Realm was always a strange experience, but Steve endured, glad to be back on his feet again when he pulled through to the other side into the present. The look on Bucky, Sam, and Banner’s faces told him maybe he had overstayed his time in the past, but he saw them all visibly relax when he reappeared, the stones and Mjolnir no longer in his possession. Things were back to how they should have been and Steve let out a final, definitive sigh, intent on fixing one last thing he should have addressed a long time ago.

His shield was heavy on his arm—a feeling he had become familiar with, but when he took it off, throwing it to Sam and smiling at the man before turning to Bucky, he felt a weight lift off of his shoulders. He grabbed Bucky’s face, pushing his gloved hands through the other super soldier’s longer hair as he pressed their lips together, feeling Bucky smirk into the kiss. This was where he was meant to be. 

This is where  _ they  _ were meant to be. 

He had lost Bucky, gotten him back, and then lost him again and now Steve just wanted him at his side for the rest of their days—however long that may be. He would turn his mantle over to Sam, knowing the man was more than capable of handling it, and maybe he and Bucky could retire in peace. God knows they both deserved it after fighting the good fight twice over. 

Bucky had always told him he’d be there until the end of the line. 

Steve intended to hang around long enough to give Bucky the chance to make good on that promise. 

That line had begun all those years ago, had defied time and space, had defied the Snap and Thanos’s power, and had tied them together again in that moment. Now, Steve wanted to see where it led them. Bucky seemed to share his sentiments, wrapping his arms around Steve and pulling him closer as they broke apart, the Winter Soldier letting a sob escape his lips as he buried his face in Steve’s neck. Steve rested his chin on Bucky’s head, smiling when Sam winked at him and moved to talk to Banner, leaving the two of them alone for the moment. 

“I’m glad you came back,” Bucky whispered, his grip on Steve’s shirt tight, as if he was afraid Steve would disappear. 

“I couldn’t leave you—not after I just got you back again. The years were lonely and quiet without you, Buck,” Steve whispered, rubbing a comforting hand up and down Bucky’s back as sobs wracked the Winter Soldier’s body. Steve let a few tears of his own fall, wiping them away before taking a shaky breath, letting Bucky sit up to look at him a few moments later. The Winter Soldier used his metal hand to cup Steve’s face, giving him a smile that warmed Steve’s heart and he couldn’t help, but laugh. 

The fact that he had survived—that they had made it through all of this bullshit to the very end, was something Steve couldn’t have expected, but he was grateful nonetheless. In the end, Steve had found Bucky again in the dust of the chaos that had separated them to begin with. That’s more than he could have ever asked for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ultimately, I might expand on these more one day, but I had to get it out of my system while my grievances were fresh in my mind.
> 
> I know I wrote this as a way to fix Endgame, but I'll end by saying that the movie wasn't _entirely_ bad. There were scenes that had me laughing my ass off, cheering so hard I lost my voice, and bawling my eyes out. Overall, I've chosen to remember the things I loved about the movie while also fixing the things I didn't. The MCU has been part of my life for almost 10 years and while I couldn't ever predict that Endgame would end like it did, I'm still grateful for the world that was built. It gave me character's that I love dearly, who got me through some rough times, and who I'll remember for the rest of my life. -Valk


End file.
